BERICHTE UND DISKUSSIONEN Hughes on Kants Aesthetic Epistemology

by Ralf Meerbote, University of Rochester

Abstract: Hughes has recently argued that there is to be found in Kants epistemology an aesthetic constraint that makes for an objectivity of empirical knowledge-claims. The reading that she defends leads to a rejection of an imposition-view of empirical concepts and the categories and to an affirmation of a realism in Kants theory of empirical knowledge. I am in broad agreement with her thesis but disagree with her ultimate explanation of the ontology of Kants objects of empirical knowledge. Hughes exposition and my reading wind their way through both Kants epistemology and his theory of free beauty and of pure judgments of taste. Keywords: Epistemological Realism, Imposition, Beauty

Hughes in her recent work1 creates and sustains interest on several levels. She develops and defends the thesis that according to Kant, there is an aesthetic condition met with in our empirical cognitions which provides a constraint on our cognitive representations, including the use of forms such as the categories, forms which Kant thinks of as legislated, prescribed, or contributed by a cognizing subject. This constraint is provided by what is given in our experiences. Hughes treats such constraint as an objectivity-making condition, a condition that is required for empirical cognition in addition to those furnished by the forms of space and time and the categories (and with them, empirical concepts). The constraint in question is itself not to be a contribution of the subject. Contributions that are of the subject are formal structures that are necessary, but not sufficient, for cognition based on perception. With her reading of Kant, Hughes is taking sides in the ever ongoing debate concerning the nature and role of realism (in one sense or another of this term) in the midst of his transcendental idealism. She proposes that in the Critique of Pure Reason2 there is already to be found a consistent and defensible realism of a par1 2

Fiona Hughes: Kants Aesthetic Epistemology: Form and World. Edinburgh 2007. And not just in Kants post-Critical period. Jeffrey Edwards, with his recent Substance, Force, and the Possibility of Knowledge (Berkeley 2000), is one of a growing number of Kant interpreters who have traced the development of Kants thoughts regarding realism from the first Critique to the Opus postumum. Also see Kenneth R. Westphal: Affinity, Idealism, and Naturalism: The Stability of Cinnabar and the Possibility of Experience, in Kant-Studien 88, 1997, 139189, for realist constraint of Hughes variety in evidence in part of the Critique of Pure Reason; as well as his Kants Transcendental Proof of Realism (Cambridge 2004). Westphals studies are remarkably detailed and sensitive, and I have learned from him and from Edwards. DOI 10.1515/KANT.2011.015

Kant-Studien 102. Jahrg., S. 202212 Walter de Gruyter 2011 ISSN 0022-8877

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ticular kind. (She also believes, however, that Kants view is not wholly and distinctly developed until the Critique of Judgment.) The realism in question pertains to the role and nature of what is given in, or given as part of, the matter of or in sensation,3 a material condition that is at work in addition to the aforementioned formal conditions. (As far as Kants transcendental idealism is concerned, Hughes interprets such idealism as ontological, regarding no more and no less than the metaphysical status of forms in the official sense of his notions of form.4) Our author characterizes the material condition in question as aesthetic. An important duality of meaning attaches to the term aesthetic, as she is well aware. As was already the case in Baumgarten, Kant uses the term to mean perceptual or pertaining to perception and then also develops a theory of aesthetics (in the sense of aesthetic familiar to us today). He does not do so in the manner of Baumgarten but nonetheless in close linkage with perception theory. Both senses of the term are essential for Hughes reading: as we shall see, aesthetic constraint is perceptual constraint intimately connected with beauty. Hughes develops her positive thesis against the background of the so-called imposition theory, popular in some quarters as a reading of Kants first-Critique talk of various forms and of their legislation and use (even when the resultant view is then rejected on philosophical grounds).5 Our author describes the imposition theory of forms as having the consequence that our cognizing mind somehow produces the objects of our empirical cognition. Objects are said here to be only objects for us: no access (of any sort?) to an extra-mental world is allowed.6 She takes imposition-theory to be bad subjectivism and a bad reading of Kant since it fails to capture his views about constraint and objectivity. In her reading of Kant, Hughes turns to an examination of the relation between the work done by four faculties which are essentially involved in our empirical cognition. Three of the four faculties are obvious: they are the senses (passive receptivity but also subject to the forms of space and time), the imagination (assigned more than one task by Kant), and the understanding (cognitive discur3

I say matter of or in sensation because it is not always clear, in Kants writings and in those of some of his interpreters, whether what is meant is matter corresponding to sensation or sensation (or an element of sensation) itself. The latter sense will turn out to be crucial. There is considerable justification for such a reading. At KrV, B 41, for example, Kant not only holds space to be a form but also nothing but a form of some of our representations and he often appears to be of the opinion that such ontological idealism of form constitutes transcendental idealism. But the latter, all considered, need not be understood in this fashion. See note 37, where I distinguish, contrary to Hughes, between metaphysical and transcendental realism and mention a conception of transcendental idealism which has such idealism be eminently compatible with metaphysical realism, even if space and the like were to be taken to be metaphysically real. For example, by Paul Guyer in his Kant and the Claims of Knowledge (Cambridge 1987). He believes proper realism to be incompatible with the main orientation of the first Critique. Hughes discusses Guyer. Hughes provides a good statement of such an interpretation in Chapter 1 of her work. I shall criticize her own conception of the extra-mental towards the end of my discussion, without, however, disagreeing with her rejection of impositionalism.

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sivity). The fourth faculty is that of reflection or reflective judgment (also assigned more than one crucial task by Kant but, at bottom, not itself cognitive discursivity, in Kants restricted sense of cognition). The role of this fourth faculty has not always been appreciated although of late there has been an upturn of interest once again (e.g., in some discussions of cognitive concepts as functions and of what Kant refers to as the formal purposiveness of nature or of our cognitive concepts).7 Explicit teleological judgments are good examples of reflective judgments and so are pure judgments of taste. (A fifth faculty, that of reason, is intertwined with that of reflection, but we can set this aside.) Hughes provides us with highly detailed discussions of the relations between these faculties, their work, their fit and their cooperation. (The realism to be defended turns on such fit and cooperation.) She characterizes this cooperation and the special roles of the imagination and of reflective judgment as the subject matter of Kants Subjective Deduction writ large. Kants overall discussion begins with his mention of a Subjective Deduction in the Preface to the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, continues in his account of the distinction between matter and form of empirical intuition and in his explanation of three-fold synthesis and figurative synthesis, and continues further still in the Chapter on the Schematism and the rest of the Analytic of Principles. (Imagination will be involved in more than one way in all of this.) The project according to her then sees its completion in accounts of reflection, of formal purposiveness and of a special aesthetic and subjective purposiveness, connected essentially with an account of common sense and the Deduction of pure judgments of taste, all in the Critique of Judgment and its two Introductions. The focus of attention in much of this is on how the various activities (but also the passive features of the senses) that go into cognitive judgment are possible and compossible. There are to be found in the literature sensitive discussions of the importance of the Subjective Deduction,8 of the relation between independent input provided by the senses and the imagination and regimentation by the understanding,9 and of the need for perceptual constraint, cooperation and harmony,10 but it is a great merit of Hughes work to be presenting the enormous scope of Kants analysis in one breadth, presenting his rather scattered discussion as part of one, crucial whole. Hughes comprehensive grasp already makes her book one of lasting interest and value. Taking it for granted (at least for the sake of argument) that space and time and conceptual structure (all forms) are no more than contributions of our cognizing
7

10

Among other recent work, see Henry Allisons Kants Theory of Taste (Cambridge 2001), chapters 1 and 68, which Hughes takes up. She herself furnishes a good description of formal purposiveness. See my discussion below. Robert P. Wolffs still very useful Kants Theory of Mental Activity (Cambridge, Mass. 1963) comes to mind. J. Michael Young has provided us with many an insight here. See in particular his Kants View of Imagination, in: Kant-Studien 79, 1988, 140164. Harmony is of course a central topic in interpretations addressing Kants conception of (free) beauty.

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mind, necessary for the possibility of empirical cognition, Hughes task (and Kants, if she is correct) is to account, at the same time, for the presence and nature of presentations that are presentations of or in sensation and that are to be a further necessary condition, a material condition not due to any contributions or activities of the mind. The givenness of sensations (due to affection) and the nature of these sensations are to yield the desired constraint (and enabling condition), rejecting impositionalism. In short, the presentations of sensation are to make for an empirical guidedness of our use of cognitive representations. But it may not be apparent how this can be so and Kant himself does not make it easy to see. Indeed, so Hughes claims, matters do not really become properly clear until the Critique of Judgment with its discussion of subjective purposiveness. Until then, Kant often makes it look as if whatever guidedness may be present comes itself about on the strength only of concepts, rules, or conditions introduced by us, a view that defeats the very possibility of the constraint that is at stake. For example, in the opening section of the Transcendental Deduction in the B-edition of the Critique of Pure Reason,11 Kant denies that any (sort of) combination (or relation) can be met with in the presentations of the senses themselves and he repeatedly seems to be of the opinion that the very possibility of there being any combination and affinity12 depends, specifically, on transcendental apperception and the latters unity, or on the (veridical) use of cognitive concepts or rules.13 I believe that a number of issues need to be sorted out here. First of all, if it nonetheless is to be correct that sensations provide the desired condition, they do need to have natures and these natures will need to consist of combination, affinity, and regularity independent of concepts or the latters use.14 (In sensation, combination and the like would be passively offered, in contrast to the forms of space and time which according to Hughes are themselves an ordering process or activity and in contrast to the form of generality which is part of the content that constitutes discursive concepts as well as in contrast to the categories which in turn order empirical concepts in cognitive contexts. Form in all of these cases in one way or another is order and is part of the content or else form of the content of our cognitive activities.) But it is the very possibility of combination etc. in sensation itself that Kant is denying in important places. Secondly, his recurring belief that combination, affinity, and the like always depend on transcendental unity may be due to a confusion between this unity requiring the former and its being the (one and only) condition bringing about such features. (This is an unflattering explanation, to be sure.) The fact of the matter, rather, is supposed to be that it is transcendental unity of apperception that depends on combination and affinity in sensation, a ma11 12

13 14

KrV, B 129131. We can speak here indifferently of combination, connection, regularity, and affinity and generality since all are cases of relations or of relatedness. (Think of affinity and generality of sensory concepts as similarity relations.) Westphals paper, cited above, provides an excellent treatment of this matter. See 176 ff. Westphal, ibid., is of help here. He stresses the concept-independence required of sensation.

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terial condition alongside formal conditions.15 (If transcendental unity brought about constraint in sensation, it would bring about its own constraint which then would be none at all, just like an impositionalist reading wants to say.) But, thirdly, the following may seem a better explanation: Kants apparent antecedent view of the poverty-stricken character of sensation ab initio has it be impossible that the latter display combination etc.16 Such features would then of necessity have to be found only in our discursivity and in the ordering processes that are the forms of space and time. Finally, aside from these explanations, it may simply not be apparent that sensation could enable and constrain or how it could do so. (See below.) However all of this may be, Hughes is very much aware of difficulties and problems for her intended reading, difficulties presented by Kants first-Critique exposition. (This is why we are being asked to await the culmination of the Subjective Deduction in the third Critique. It is indeed hard to resist the belief that Kant may not himself have been altogether clear about this before 1790.) Part of the story to be told is as follows. Upon the occasion of sensation, the forms of space and time (forms for sensation) are introduced. As an ordering process, so Hughes tells us,17 these forms structure what is given in experience, anticipating but not bringing about that given. In the A-edition, the three-fold synthesis then in turn structures perceptual content found in manifolds of empirical intuitions. (The B-edition takes a somewhat different path.) Hughes is intent upon maintaining the giveness of sensory presentations in these syntheses as well, on occasion finding fault with some of Kants own expositions in the first Critique. As part of her reading, Hughes takes there to be some kind of independence of synthesis of apprehension and its companion, synthesis of reproduction in imagination, from synthesis of recognition in a concept. The former two are held by her to achieve only some sort of low-level unity, not yet the unity of the third of the three syntheses.18 (She wants to think of the first two types as merely preparatory for the third type of synthesis.) It is not clear to this reader what sort of lowlevel unity is intended. As a matter of fact, it seems to me that Hughes underplays the spontaneity and conceptual guidance of or in all three types as well as their internal connections. I believe that Kants very point of speaking of syntheses of perceptual manifolds is that the cognizing mind actively arranges its perceptual content, intent upon charting a path through present and subsequent experiences so as to prepare perceptual warrant (if such there be) for some cognitive judgment. Reproductive imagination is required for recall or memory at the present moment but so is at the same time productive imagination by way of anticipating continu15 16

17 18

Again see Westphal, op. cit., 178. In the Transcendental Aesthetic and the Transcendental Deduction of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant does seem to be of the opinion that no ordering relations can be met with in sensations themselves. The view, dominant in the 18th century, of the metaphysical ideality of all relations (or at least of all relations grasped by us) may seem to motivate such a poverty-stricken conception of sensation, but sensations are of course themselves mental and the crucial issue at stake here for Kant is whether there are preconceptual sensory relations. Also see note 37, below. Hughes, op. cit., chapter 3. Hughes, op. cit., chapter 4.

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ities or regularities between present and some subsequent courses of manifolds (in light, for example, of the schema of the permanent in time). Productive imagination will be engaged here as part of the present apprehension of the manifold. (All of this should be congenial, I believe, to Hughes overall approach.) Such schematizing arranging is performed on the strength of some concept and its exposition consisting of sensory concepts (synthesis of recognition of perceptual content in a concept).19 (It is also important to see that the productive imagination here does not introduce novelty. Rather, imagination engages in the sort of anticipation I have suggested in full grasp of present perceptual content. If this were not the case, it would be a puzzle why we are focusing on the work of the imagination and its relation to the understanding when the given problem concerns presentations of the senses. Hughes readers will want to know why there is talk about sensory givenness and about imagination as mediator between empirical intuition and understanding and about cooperation between imagination and understanding. The answer is that we are talking here throughout about sensation-cum-imagination and its work and relation to the understanding.) In short, in cognitive situations we, as it were, always catch ourselves already using and applying concepts. Such an activist conception of all cognitive synthesis may seem to deepen the mystery of independent sensory input. Hughes certainly describes matters very well when she alludes to a hegemony or dominance of the understanding over the imagination in situations in which we are cognitively employed. But at the same time, the anticipations which I spoke of a moment ago evidently need to be fulfilled if there is to be good perceptual warrant needed for successful empirical cognition, and it should be the case that they at bottom will be fulfilled (when they are) by perceptual manifolds themselves. The active arranging of these manifolds crucially involves a structuring of our anticipations, conceptually represented. Such representation of combinations and regularities should need as a necessary condition of success satisfaction by the manifolds themselves. This satisfaction would require the latter to possess a structure of their own. Following her extensive discussion of synthesis in the Deduction in both editions of the Critique of Pure Reason (including a look at the objective side of the Deductions), our author takes up next the Chapter on Schematism and the imaginations role in schematization as described there (with the imagination mediating as mentioned a moment ago). She continues to do so with a view towards a relation between intuition and understanding that is to tell against impositionalism. She finds some additional encouragement for her reading in Kants further discussions in the Analytic of Principles. The Anticipations of Perception is a good

19

I am relying here on Carl J. Posys exemplary discussions of Kants views concerning perceptual warrant and conceptual guidance of cognitive synthesis, of the anticipatory nature of experience, and of the role of productive imagination. Among his articles, see Transcendental Idealism and Causality: An Interpretation of Kants Argument in the Second Analogy, in: Kant on Causality, Freedom, and Objectivity (Minneapolis 1984, reissued 2008), 2041; and Where Have All the Objects Gone?, in: The B-Deduction, The Southern Journal of Philosophy XXV, Supplement 1987, 1736.

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example.20 The designated topic of this section of the first Critique is that intensive measurability of (some) qualities is an a priori (formal) requirement for empirical cognition but Kant here also tells us that the particular matter of empirical intuition, that is, sensation, is always to be given or awaited. Hughes argues that the Second Analogy and the Second Postulate,21 among further sections, prove helpful as well. The Second Postulate, for example, speaks of empirical actuality as requiring an accordance with sensation as a material condition (as well as with formal conditions). Still, all told, not all is as clear as we would wish in Kants first-Critique account of the presentations and role of sensation. I find myself basically in agreement with Hughes reading of the just-mentioned sections of the first Critique.22 She herself then continues by arguing, in an interesting and compelling fashion, that Kants final considered account of the work done by the perceptual manifold and of the relation between that labor and that of our concepts or rules fully comes into focus in his third-Critique account of work done by reflective judgment (including reflective judgments use of imagination) and in his theory of pure judgments of taste (specifically, judgments of beauty). The deep structure of synthesis, Hughes tells us, is finally accounted for in the course of Kants analysis and defense of judgments of beauty, as follows.23 In judgments of this sort, we are once again engaged in perceptual encounters but, appropriately so, find ourselves not using any cognitive concepts, and this in a fashion reveals the sought-after possibility of the contribution by perceptual manifolds themselves in cognitive contexts. She argues that a judgment of beauty, itself wholly subjective, by means of exemplary exhibition indicates the very possibility of fit between the faculties of imagination and understanding.24 Such exemplary exhibition is the promised link between empirical cognition and beauty. Beauty itself, so Hughes shows as part of her account of the Deduction of pure judgments of taste in the Critique of Judgment,25 is a particular heightened degree of a more general cooperation between the two faculties, such general cooperation being present in all cases of successful empirical cognition. Beauty is such a degree in the absence of any concept application even only intended. (This is the free harmony of the two faculties). A judgment of beauty reveals what is presented in empirical intuition to be, in her words, open to the general possibility of (cognitive) synthesis or the possibility of applying concepts but it itself does so without any concept in view.26 I take all of this to mean that in a judgment of this sort our perceptual encounter (of beauty) is once again intrinsically intertwined with anticipation of continuity,
20 21 22

23 24 25 26

KrV, A 166/B 207A 176/B 218. KrV, A 189/B 232A 210/B 256 and A 225/B 272A 226/B 274, respectively. Kants positive first-Critique discussions, such as they are, of the work of sensation are primarily met with in the (Subjective Deduction of the) Analytic of Principles as well as in the Appendix of the Transcendental Dialectic. Hughes, op. cit., chapters 5 and 8. Hughes, op. cit., chapter 8. KU, AA 05: 289290, 30ff. and 292293, 155 ff. Hughes, op. cit., chapters 5 and 8.

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uniformity, or regularity as part of the current experience (and fulfilled in the course of the whole experience), features or structure evidently presented this time by sensation-cum-imagination alone, without the benefit of any concepts applied. In free harmony, our selfsame sensation-cum-imagination according to Kant meets a demand of the understanding (uniformity and the like) very much on its own, without any concepts or rules being in play. But with this Kant is claiming that sensation itself can exemplify combination, affinity, regularity, hence generality, contrary to his earlier disclaimer in the first Critique. Since this is the very possibility of the sort of structure in or of sensations themselves in cognitive contexts that we have been looking for, it emerges that in contexts of this latter sort, indications of continuity, uniformity etc. can indeed be present in at least some sensations themselves (but concepts, when had, will be applied). Such structure is, then, not itself a function of concepts or of their use and will, on the contrary, constrain concept application. According to Kant, a judgment of beauty in its own unique manner allows us to see or to grasp such presence. We might say that aesthetic non-conceptual order here intimates the sort of preconceptual order of manifolds in cognitive contexts that we have been after. In such contexts, manifolds as they are before concept application can and may display features of uniformity etc. that are required by, or are suitable for, successful schematization driven by empirical concepts and the categories. These manifolds are thereby among the enabling conditions of successful concept application, and our having perceptual warrant turns out to depend on the manifold, just as we want it to. Hughes fit is one between, on the one hand, sensation-cum-imagination now definitively disclosed as it can be independently of concepts and, on the other, our minds discursive activity. Clearly, some sort of sensory discrimination (to be then reflected upon) is at work here. The nature of such discrimination deserves further study, as do the nature of subsequent sensory concepts and their formation. A judgment of beauty according to Kant, so I am reading Hughes, exhibits for us discrimination of this sort but I believe we also need an analytical account of the pre-conceptual nature of what is given us in cognitive situations and, with this, an account of the specific manner in which the presented can be suited for concept-driven schematization. In particular, we need to understand better how generality can already be present in sensation and how it can be non-conceptually indicated for the purposes of cognition. Much of this will take us beyond the scope of Hughes work. In short, the third Critiques Subjective Deduction has taken steps towards showing that perceptual manifolds themselves are capable of providing an independent condition of the application of concepts and that they are partner to the understanding. (Both the free harmony of judgments of beauty and the general cooperation of the faculties in cognitive situations are relations between true partners.) Hughes general cooperation of the faculties constitutes a general level of reflective formal or cognitive purposiveness, so she tells us.27 Pure judgments of taste themselves are also reflective (and of subjective purposiveness). This part of her
27

Hughes, op. cit., chapter 7.

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discussion hence assigns important tasks to reflective judgments in behalf of cognitive ones. What is more, Hughes reaches her results concerning exemplary exhibition of the possibility of fit via a good discussion of formal purposiveness now understood as a systematic order on the level of diversity of empirical forms or concepts (a formal purposiveness of our systems of concepts as a tool for concept application, given the possibility of fit.)28 This provides yet another task for reflective in behalf of cognitive judgments, rounding off her overall discussion of the role of judgments of the former sort. I have disregarded this latter detail and indeed many others unearthed by Hughes in her complex work while adding a detail or two to her descriptions. But I trust I have presented the gist of her view accurately enough. I find Hughes discussion of the Subjective Deduction in the third Critique and of what leads up to it to be both a plausible account of Kants progressive refinement of his own thinking about the matters involved and (although incomplete as an explanation) an interesting and overall creditable argument for the possibility of aesthetic constraint on the formal structures which he takes to be contributed by us, hence an argument against an impositionalist reading, as difficult as this may initially have seemed.29 But I beg to differ concerning Hughes ontology of objects. She buys into an Allisonian non-ontological reading of Kants conception of things as they are in themselves.30 Encouraged, I think, by this, our author takes empirical objects or objects of empirical cognition to be no more than objects existing in space and she takes being in space to make for an independent existence. Hughes objects are the objects of the Refutation of Material Idealism (whose existence proof she banks on).31 But the Refutation itself does not establish the existence of ontologically independent entities (given Kants views on space). My basic objection is that Allisons way of generating a conception of things as they are in themselves does not succeed. (For example, it does not account for the possession of properties on the part of such things. But Kant believes they do have properties.)32 Things as
28 29

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31 32

Ibid. If I have a reservation concerning Hughes treatment, it would concern the use of the form of space. Like the form of time, that of space is to be an ordering process for sensations, but I think it is not good enough to be told, as we are in her Chapter 6, Section V, that the form of space is a form for what is material or that it is intimately bound up with what is material. When discussing figurative synthesis and the Axiom of Intuition, Hughes speaks of an iterative synthesis. I take this to mean iterative synthesis of homogeneous space but I cannot tell whether she means to be distinguishing between metric and topological properties of space and how constraints of sensation are to play a role here (if they are). All told, what does Hughes take to be the conditions of use of, say, topological concepts? For Henry Allisons basic view here, see his Kants Transcendental Idealism (New Haven 1983), chapters 1, 2, and 11. Hughes, op. cit., chapter 3. Compare KrV, B 306. These are to be properties not cognizable by us. At the same time, abstracting from a property in our representation of an entity is not to represent that entity as not having the property in question. This provides yet another reason for rejecting Allisons reading. For a good discussion of these difficulties, see Robert Howell, Kants Transcendental Deduction (Dordrecht 1992), 2023.

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they are in themselves are not ways of considering things and objects, all told, are more than what is in space. A related feature telling against on Allisonian reading is that the forms of space and time are (according to Hughes herself)33 introduced upon occasion of sensation, the result of affection. But what grounds affection? This is a question she takes up.34 But, I submit, metaphysical realism (again) needs to come into the picture, contrary to Hughes claim that empirical realism is the only realism Kant can consistently hold. She argues that an Allisonian conception of transcendental matter will do when it comes to accounting for the ground of affection but I do not believe that this is so.35 Given receptivity, metaphysically real things as they are in themselves (and according to Kant not cognizable as they are in themselves) are the ground of affection. They bring about affection, hence sensation with its own possibility of combination etc., to be then in turn spatially and temporally ordered. In Hughes scheme of things, in contrast, the sensory given emerges at best as a wholly unexplained brute fact, despite her efforts to the contrary. (At its worst, the objects which are to be responsible for sensations turn out to be for her no more than some kind of construct out of the very material that is given in these sensations.) If my objections are on target, some irony attaches to Hughes interpretation of Kants ontology: she shows how to rescue him from an impositionalist reading but then herself fails to allow for, and to explain, his true commitment to the existence of the properly extra-mental, a commitment which does hold that objects are indeed more than just objects for us.36 A metaphysically realist reading should hold that we cognize ontologically independent things (when we do) as they appear in empirical intuition. Reference, truth, and cognition in Kant need to be sorted out from such a perspective, if they can be.37 Despite both exegetical and philosophical difficulties with such an ap33 34 35

36

37

Hughes, op. cit., chapter 3. Hughes, op. cit., chapter 2. To speak here of Allisonian transcendental matter amounts to holding that we, once again, by abstraction, represent matter in general which then (so this view has it) serves as ground for sensations. This explanation fails already for the reasons indicated in note 32 above. This shows that there are two issues at stake here. One concerns the nature and role of sensation, taken as given; and the other, the ontology of objects underlying these sensations. See note 37. For example, Posy and Westphal, mentioned above, take Kants conception of cognizable truth into very different directions. Largely on the strength of an analysis of Kants resolution of the first Antinomy, Posy argues that the best way to understand Kants conception of transcendental idealism is as a thesis which takes empirical cognizable truth to be eventual warranted assertability rather than correspondence with things as they are in themselves. This takes transcendental idealism to be an epistemological idealism compatible with metaphysical realism but denying transcendental, i.e., epistemological, realism. (This is not to say that Kant always distinguishes between metaphysical and transcendental realism in this fashion or that he does not often think of transcendental idealism as ontological. Kants various pronouncements are hardly compatible with one another. Metaphysical realism, at the same time, is certainly a realism concerning the existence of things as they are in themselves but it could also include a realism concerning, say, space. Space

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proach I believe that Hughes, for the reasons I have given, herself misses out on the truly extra-mental world. I do not believe, however, that this affects her way with an activity-independent (material) structure of perceptual manifolds themselves. My intermittent criticisms and emendations in no way detract from my admiration for Hughes work. With her patient discussion of Kants accounts of sensation, imagination, and our use of concepts, and her analyses of the tasks of reflective judgment and of the final task of the Subjective Deduction in the third Critique, she has taken important steps towards clarifying a crucial issue in Kants epistemology. Empirical cognition emerges as a task and an achievement since the cooperation of the faculties turns out to include that of an aesthetic constraint and enabling condition independent of our activities. Hughes book is a valuable contribution to the literature and very much deserves a wide readership.

could be metaphysically real without thereby forcing a rejection of epistemological idealism.) Westphal, in contrast, believes cognizable truth to be correspondentist and he takes Kant to be driven to hold (eventually) that it is the ontologically independent ground of sensation which is the target of empirical cognition. He hence holds that Kant is a metaphysical realist and eventually a transcendental realist as well (in the sense of transcendental realism I have alluded to). Hughes believes she is avoiding metaphysical realism on the strength of her Allisonian interpretation of things as they are in themselves. She and Posys (but also Westphals) metaphysical realist disagree on the metaphysics of objects. In the context of Posys reading, we can disambiguate the notion of the material given to or in sensation as follows. (Compare note 3, above). It is the given in sensation, features of regularity etc. of sensations themselves, which provides a justificatory condition for empirical cognition (in light of, for example, the dynamical categories). At the same time, there being a properly ontologically independent ground of sensations, itself possessed of properties, constitutes an in-principle explanatory (but not justificatory) condition (a condition, however, not itself a matter for our cognition). Westphal agrees that preconceptual material constraint on the part of sensations (in addition to our use of the categories in our cognitive syntheses) is required for empirical cognition. Both Posy and Westphal agree with Hughes in this regard.